Okay so this morning I was making some Hormel bacon and I figured I’d give it a try with a slice or two. Boiled for a little less then 5 minutes, dried it off and slapped it on a hot griddle and fried it. It got crispy fast, but it was the blandest bacon I’ve ever tasted. Boiled the flavor right out of it. I think KeithIrwin was right, doesn’t really serve a purpose with modern bacon.

Mmm…bacon.
So on the foil lid it says “Boil slices in water for 5 minutes. Remove, drain, and Fry.” Why would you boil it before frying? Is that to kill any bacteria? Is this something they used to do because of different shipping methods? Just curious since I’ve only ever baked or fried my bacon. The thought of boiling the bacon first just sounds wrong. Unless it’s for the purpose of killing bacteria.

The boiling is probably to remove excesses as indicated. It probably won’t do much with modern bacon because modern bacon isn’t really cured, it’s just infused with salt water.

After Italy surrendered in WW2, they had problems with food shortages, so the US sent them surplus ratios. As a result, they had good amounts of bacon and eggs. This lead to the spreading of the recipe for pasta carbonara which had formerly just been a regional dish (and not served that commonly).

I think the boiling is for the same reason salted meat has to be soaked.

It doesn’t seem to mention how it’s conserved, but it doesn’t look like vacuum packed so I’d guess salted or somesuch?
I doubt normal bacon would benefit from boiling though, quite the opposite even..
Soggy bacon, yuch…

Hmmm, I think it would be an interesting experiment. There’s no reason that it would be soggy. Not if you dried it off first and then fried it nice and crisp.

There are many situations in which a nice braise helps tenderize the proteins in the meat before a serious sear crisps them up. It’s probably unlikely that this would transfer to a piece of meat cut as thinly as bacon, though.

I think that there’s probably an 90% chance that this would turn out worse than frying alone, 8% chance that it wouldn’t be significantly different, and a 2% chance that it could actually be quite good. Maybe I’ll try this tonight, since no one’s at home tonight so they won’t think I’m too weird…